Free Bad Boy by Jim Thompson

the machine. I think he would have caned the arcade proprietor, but that shrewd gentleman wisely gave him no back talk. Instead, he returned Pa’s coins and led him out to the sidewalk. He pointed to a burlesque house across and down the street.
    “Why look at pictures,” he inquired, “when you can see the real thing?”
    “Well, now,” said Pa, greatly mollified. “Maybe you got something there, friend.”
    Fort Worth had a number of burlesque houses at that time, and we were able to obtain choice seats on the front or “baldhead” row. Except for three brief and alternate absences, we stayed there until the house closed at midnight.
    Those absences? Well, first I went outside to buy a cane so that I could hook the girls on the ramp as Pa did. Then, Pa went out for a fresh supply of whiskey. Then, I went out for a carton of coffee and sandwiches.
    It was a wonderfully satisfying day. Pa had given a bottle to the ushers and sent a couple of others backstage, and in that place he and I could do no wrong. We hooked the girls’ garments until they were reduced to near nudity. Pa climbed upon the ramp and chased them backstage. Yet they responded with laughter and joyous shrieks, and occasionally one would stoop swiftly and plant a kiss on Pa’s head.
    Each of the succeeding three days, at the end of which the family returned, was a reasonable facsimile of that first day. Hot toddies in the morning, then a pool game, then a burlesque house, with drinks and meals being imbibed at strategic intervals. Also much talk from Pa, much advice delivered in his casual back-handed fashion.
    I am afraid that most of what he said was wasted upon me. But I was imbued with a little of his wisdom, at least briefly. I gave Pop no further argument about the clothes, and I submitted silently if sullenly to his criticisms. For a time, I was docile.
    Then we bought a house and Pa returned to Nebraska and I started to school.
    Texas had only eleven grades of school as compared with the twelve in other states. Thus, as an eighth-grade student in the Oklahoma schools, I was technically a first-year high-school student in Texas. Being extremely praise-hungry, and anxious to shine in Pop’s eyes, I took advantage of that technicality.
    Nowadays, it is no unusual thing for a twelve-year-old—and I was still twelve—to enter high school. But it was unusual at that time. More important, in my case, it was completely unjustifiable.
    I had read voraciously and far in advance of my years, and I was a walking compendium of largely unassimilated knowledge drilled into me by Pop. But I was sadly prepared for the inelastic high-school curriculum. In our various moves from place to place, I had been absent from grammar school practically as much as I had attended. Now, I was missing a whole year. I knew nothing of cube and square root and many other things upon which the high-school subjects were predicated.
    Despite the sorry state of my elementary schooling, I think I might have done passably in the higher grades if I could have put my heart into it. I have almost always managed to do the things I really cared about doing. Similarly, however, and doubtless regrettably, I can do nothing at all if I do not care. And I become uncaring very quickly if I am prodded or driven, or if the people involved are distasteful to me.
    To put the last thing first, the Texans are distasteful—or so I soon convinced myself. I studied their mannerisms and mores, and in my twisted outlook they became Mongoloid monsters. I saw all their bad and no offsetting good.
    Texans made boast of their insularism; they bragged about such things as never having been outside the state or the fact that the only book in their house was the Bible. Texans did not need to work to improve their characters as Pop was constantly pressing me to do. All Texans were born with perfect characters, and these became pluperfect as their owners drank the unrivaled Texas water, breathed the wondrous